1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns an apparatus and a corresponding method to feed metal products such as reinforcement rods, section bars, tubes or suchlike, with any section shape whatsoever, to a work machine such as a stirrup-making machine, a bending machine, a shaping machine or other analogous or similar machine.
In particular, the apparatus according to the present invention is disposed upstream of the work machine and is provided with a plurality of feed heads, each of which is provided to retain the ends of the metal products arriving, for example, from a respective coil. The apparatus is provided to feed to the work machine the metal products of one of the feed heads.
2. Description of Related Art
Work machines are known, for bending, shaping and stirrup-making of metal products such as bars, round pieces, reinforcement rods or suchlike. Examples of such machines are described in EP 1.864.726 A1, GB 1.436.293 A and EP 419.441 A1.
It is also known that such work machines are provided upstream of the work members, for example bending mandrels and cutting shears, with drawing means provided to move the metal products longitudinally.
To increase the versatility of the work machines, upstream of the latter an apparatus may be provided to feed the metal products which, according to requirements, makes available to the machine the different metal products required for the particular type of final product to be obtained. The feed apparatus is therefore suitable to predispose metal products having different geometrical properties such as different sizes or different section shapes.
A feed apparatus is known, provided with a plurality of feed heads, each of which is suitable to retain the ends of one or more metal products to be worked simultaneously, and a drawing unit, or insertion unit, which is disposed in axis with the drawing means of the machine to feed the products to the work machine, thus allowing for example the drawing means comprised inside the machine itself to grip.
More specifically, the metal products are moved, by means of suitable conveyor means, toward the feed heads which retain the respective ends
The feed heads are each taken, on each occasion and according to the specifications of the final product to be obtained, into correspondence with the drawing unit of the machine, which then moves the corresponding metal products longitudinally toward the work members.
To increase the productivity of these machines it is also known that each of the feed heads is provided with two or more positioning seatings, for each type, to feed two or more metal products simultaneously to the work machine.
One disadvantage of known feed apparatuses is the limited flexibility in the frequent case where the machine has to work one product only, or two or more products of the same type.